Nena Arias | May 4, 2020
It truly saddens my heart to hear how so many parents are complaining and dreading having their children home from school during this coronavirus shut down. All of my children are adults now, but I can remember how much I enjoyed being their mother at all ages. So, when I hear that moms and dads around the country are bellyaching and complaining through social media how they are more afraid and dread to be locked in their homes with their children than they are afraid of the actual virus, I just don’t get it. It’s simply not natural when you are a parent.
For some twisted reason, moms and dads have been deemed to be unable to teach their own children. But on the other hand, that is a sign of the times we are living in and how life has been taken out of context of what it should be. I am completely appalled and grieved by what I am seeing and hearing in regard to some parent’s attitude toward their children. I blame this on the lack of proper teaching in the Christian churches and radical feminism that has even crept into the church, not to speak of how it dominates society in general.
I can only imagine how hurtful it is to the children to hear their parents speak of them in such burdensome terms. It is incredible that some moms and dads don’t mind that their children are listening when they complain of being house bound with their children as some kind of worst nightmare.
The majority of modern parents have been so accustomed to delegating the education of their children since an early age to schoolteachers and even on the weekends to club leaders and Sunday School teachers that they automatically think it is someone else’s job to educate their children.
Many modern parents want to keep living life with all the free time they had prior to parenthood that they fall apart if they can’t have their “me time” as often as they would like to. Least of all now that they are having to homeschool their children during this lock-down. They can’t wait until this pandemic is over so they can be “let out of jail” so to speak.
Even Christian parents are complaining that if they had known the hard work that is involved in parenting, they would have had less or no children. Now that they are actually having to raise them, they say they can’t handle it. They find no joy in the daily routine of having to see to all of their children’s needs. They forget that someone else had to do it for them when they were children.
Sadly, too many modern parents want children not because they want to raise them and nurture them in the fear and admonition of the Lord, but because it’s expected or because they think it is the automatic thing to do. They do not realistically consider all that is involved in parenting; it gets hard and we can’t quit when it does become difficult. Yes, there are going to be more dirty dishes, more dirty clothes to wash, the house gets messy, children do have tantrums, etc. but children are gifts from God. They are a reward: “children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward” (Psalms 127:3).
It has become too easy to send the children to school for most of the day, then there are other activities where someone else is in charge. If the family is blessed to have grandparents usually the children end up with them for the weekend. The parents end up barely knowing their own children. Is it any wonder this lockdown is turning out to be a very trying experience?
On the other hand, there are other moms and dads that through this lockdown are discovering that they actually are enjoying homeschooling and might not return their children back to public school. They are going to choose to deny their own wishes or find a way to work from home so they can put their children first, and I applaud them.
With minor children, home is where the moms belong even if they have to put their own careers on hold for a bit. Being the heart of your home 24/7 is incredibly challenging, especially during these uncertain times, but it is where we are needed most and what we are most equipped by God to do.
This pause that the pandemic has created should strengthen families and bring many positive changes in our society. Start your day with prayer. Teach your children daily from God’s Word. Prepare them for life in the long haul on what truly matters. Make your home the safest, most secure place in the world by making sure it is built on the solid Rock which is Jesus.
There is no greater calling or more influential position in the world than being a parent. We must assure our children that they are blessings, not burdens.